So today I finally got hold of the Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme GTX 280 Cooler. I have everything set up and running like a dream now, however it was not all smooth sailing. Once I had removed my old heatsink, cleaned the card up and fit the new one I booted up and was amazed at the core temps, 60C load in Furmark where I used to get 90C +. This was great. However I noticed in GPU-Z that while running furmark my VRM's were hitting 130C+ which they never did when I had the stock cooler on. I was skeptical that the supplied VRM stick-on cooler would ever be a good solution. I didn't really know what to do about this probelm so I jumped on google and found this thread here http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=89018 where a guy had written a mini-review on this cooler and had found exactly the same problem. He tried replacing the supplied vrm cooler with individual Zalman sinks but that didn't work. In the end he hack-sawed the vrm cooler off the old GTX cooler and screwed it in place. So I went to the hardware store and got me a hacksaw Chopped up the old cooler to get the necessary piece, which due to its design can be screwed on tightly to the card providing much better contact that the stick-on one. Instead of using the thick thermal pads that came with the accelero I cut up bits of the white thermal padding which were used on the original heatsink as they are much thinner and after a little test proved to be a better solution. Booted back up and ran furmark and now my VRM temps maxed out at about 90C. Success! Now....the only remaining issue is that the ram sinks won't stay on properly I'm hoping they will cure on there with time, currently they are held in place by wedging folded cardboard between the sink and the cooler above. So all in all it was a bit of a mission to get to this stage but the results are excellent. No more loud GTX fan, no more 90C core temps. Arctic cooling could certainly make some improvements to this product though, by supplying a vrm sink which uses the same screw pattern as the stock heatsink so that a good contact can be made, this would be a complete solution. As it stands, I wouldn't be comfortable running with thier vrm solution for too long with temps over 130C... Edit// I forgot to mention I also did not use the supplied stick on back plate, I instead used the original black screw-on backplate from the stock cooler.
Too bad these aren't for sale yet in the US, AC rep said they were shipping next month i think. I was keen on getting 2 for my cards cause my temps were getting high. but then i just lowered my voltages and now they run cool without the fans getting loud.
Here are some photo's of the card post-op. Some heatpipe action In this pic you can see the black heatsink attached to the card. This is the VRM cooling section I cut off the stock cooler and screwed on in place of the rubbish VRM sink that they supply with this cooler. The rolled up bit of card to the left is wedged in there to hold the ram sink on in the hope that a bit of time and heat will help it stick on. More heatpipe porn It's a beast Stock cooler backplate re-used instead of flimsy silver stock-on plate supplied. Home sweet home.
Hi, im new but ive got one of these installed on my gtx 280, but the thing is the fan doesnt spin??? how come?? everything works, display etc, temps start off at 40 degrees without fan running but gets hotter :S plz help btw yes i have plugged the fan into the gfx card, but it still wont work :S
It must be faulty. I would suggest taking it back for a replacement. All you should have to do is plug the fan in to the same place on the GPU where the stock fan was plugged in and you're good to go.
dam so what uu mean over heats which part thought the heat sync for gfx wud be enough i wont order sounds didgey like worse then stock fan i was gona buy till i saw that omf lol cutting old cooler up n stuffs is just dodgey i thiought they would have tested all this and made it more silent and cooler is you saying gpu lower temp but vram for is overheating my card is lous very loud i wanted this as quite solution and i use my pc allniter sumtime so must be cool should i buy this cooling device is it worth it
GTX280 cooling unit i see bad review onit saying must destroy card with hacksaw to retreve the heatsync is the heatsync any good with thiscooler as i will get and install but hacksaw old heat sync sounds very dodgey is this worth getting my card runs uber hot and loud i just need much silent and colder gpu
English dude, english. Been looking into this cooler for a while. It´s pricey as hell in my country, but as said before, looks like a beast. This review however got me thinking. Previous experience with Arctic Cooling products (Accelero S1 Rev. 2 fitted to my old 8800 GTS) was very positive. Hope they find a solution to this issue soon.
hey there...i'm also planning on getting the Accelero Xtreme ..but not the GTX 280 ..i want the GTX PRO for my gtx 285 , does anyone know if PRO has the same ****ty VRM heatsync as the 280 ? cause i would like not to hacksaw the old one
The Vrm's on the GT200 series are something to consider when your upgrading the cooler on the card. The Accelero plate that comes with the 280 kit is junk and will run the vrm's at crazy temps. You can check out what I did on a couple Gtx280's in this thread, http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=298637&page=2 I wonder how the heatsinks work on the vrm's for the Gtx285? I know they made a different kit , thats more like a ram sink than a plate.
I have that exact same cooler and couldnt get my vram sinks to stick either so i just got some apoxy thermal adhesive and my load temps are neva above 45degrees
for me when i installed the accelero gtx pro on my gtx 285 i didnt install all heatsinks...but i did cover everything that it is to cover ...probably because the gtx pro version covers a wider variety of gpus and needs different shapes and sizes of heatsinks
